


They Glisten Blue

by cottonwoolsocks



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: BAMF Klaus Hargreeves, Canon Related, Canonical Character Death, Dead Dave (Umbrella Academy), Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Guns, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Klaus Hargreeves Deserves Better, Klaus Hargreeves Has PTSD, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, Klaus Uses his Powers, M/M, Other, Protective Klaus Hargreeves, Season 2, Superpowers, The Commission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25697929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cottonwoolsocks/pseuds/cottonwoolsocks
Summary: What if it was Klaus instead of Vanya who used his powers in the fight against the Commission?Or; Klaus still blames himself for Dave’s death, but realises that this time he can do something about the threat to those he loves.
Relationships: Dave/Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Everyone
Comments: 34
Kudos: 1073





	They Glisten Blue

Klaus’s eyes blew wide as the gunshots whizzed past the hay troughs, hands clamped tight over his ears as he tried to tie his mind down and force it not to fall back into memories of _trenches_ and _mud_ and _Dave_ brewing just below the surface. Luther’s arm steadied him physically, but on the inside he was guarded only by only his own resilience .

He had seen Five sprint back towards the house, now safe—saf _er_ , at least—inside the walls, but Diego was still by the tractor, Vanya was nowhere to be seen and he and his siblings alone were no match for the wall of Commission soldiers swelling ever-closer.

Wailing ghosts underpinned the cacophony of bullets, rising in a messy discordance as bullets pinged against the metal of the troughs, disturbing the hay and carving scars in the dirt all around them. And for a moment, he was back there, Dave at his side as Klaus turned to celebrate their lucky escape, Dave who didn’t smile back at him with those twinkling blue eyes and a touch that could make Klaus feel safe even inches from death, Dave who was too still, too quiet, warmth seeping from a wound that wouldn’t heal and deep into the earth below in a desperate rush of red.

And Klaus was helpless as the life drained out from the only man he had ever truly loved, the only one who could hold him safe in the midst of the constant wailing and screaming of soldiers dead and dying, helpless as bullets rained around his siblings and a tidal wave of regret poisoned his veins.

He couldn't help Dave. He had been careless, weak, so afraid of the risk of failure he had not even bothered to try.

The regret would never leave him. It would stain him for as long as he lived, the dog tags he had sworn never to remove a weighing reminder of what was and what could have been.

But now?

In his stomach, the sickening urge to take action curled along with his fists. He could feel the tension building in his chest, jagged and slicing, coursing along his veins like a familiar high as it tingled past his elbows and into his fingers and a blue light spilled out, enveloped them. He squirmed from Luther’s hold, his brother’s grip loosening as he let Klaus move away, but Klaus did not see the confusion and hesitation on his face, too busy scrambling onto his knees to peek over the trough’s edge and get a bearing on the battlefield.

Diego was still stuck behind the tractor wheel, limbs pulled in close as he tried to avoid the rain of bullets, and as their eyes met Diego’s widened as he hastily gestured for Klaus to get down, face ashen. Klaus’s gaze flicked away, expression grim as he moved to study the ghosts.

Their numbers were astounding. A handful of them had tagged after Lila and the Handler initially, numbers steadily increasing the longer the pair stayed, and around the farm itself a few had already been wandering. But since the thousand other Commission operatives had arrived, the numbers had doubled, tripled, blown tenfold as ghosts flanked every pair of operatives, all seething, all bloody, all eyeing the ones they stalked with the sort of horrific revulsion you have only for those who stole your life.

Klaus’s hands fizzed blue, sparking and crackling out as a bullet stung past Klaus’s head and he ducked to one side.

He clenched his fists tighter, knowing it was now or never, knowing as he watched the first agents level with the tractor that if he didn’t do something now they were all due to die fruitlessly, just like his friends in the mud, just like Dave.

The blue flickered, popping and fizzing as he thought of Dave, Dave’s stupidly wide grin and blond hair and his eyes, blue eyes—a blue, Klaus realised with a jolt, perfectly matched to the blue glistening around his clenched fists. The colour swelled as regret reared in his chest, longing for something he couldn’t have, shouldn't have ever had the chance to have, but that through some god-given miracle had been allowed to experience.

And he knew it was too late for Dave, that he had done what he could, knew deep in his chest that his part in Dave’s story was over, and that while Dave was gone he had died knowing his life was Klaus’s life’s best part.

Klaus’s fists blazed blue, confident for the first time in his own abilities, in the knowledge that he was important, that he did have purpose, that he was worth more than the lookout and the deadbeat and the letdown.

Even if he couldn’t save Dave, he could save his family.

Spectral silhouettes materialised across the battlefield, ghosts raising fists as they felt potential course through them, punches connecting as they bit and kicked and tore at whatever they could of the people who had murdered their families and taken away all they had ever loved. The wails of thousands of ghosts swelled in a deafening crescendo, drowning out the gunshots as they petered away, guns dropped onto the grass from limp fingers or torn away in decades of invisible fury.

And there was Klaus at the pinnacle, fists shadowed with ghostly blue, expression hard and focused, foreign on a man who usually seemed so carefree and bubbly as he watched the downfall of a thousand enemies at his hand; and for a moment, Luther, Allison and Diego saw the man beneath the facade, caught a glimpse of the Klaus that was usually kept so diligently locked away and shrouded like a forbidden family secret. This was the Klaus that had been plagued by the dead for as long as he could remember, that had never known a second’s peace from their screaming for as long as he had lived. This was the Klaus that had spent a year on the front lines of a fruitless war, who had seen friends and comrades kill and be killed and who had taken the lives of hundreds. This was the Klaus hardened from a lifetime of solitude in company and watching the life of the only one who had ever made him feel like he was worth something spilling into the mud like nothing more than a bucket of over-expensive pink paint.

The gunshots ceased, and for everyone but Klaus, the cries of the dead petered out like the instruments on an album’s last track. Until the field, for everyone but Klaus, rang with an empty silence.

Luther and Allison shared a look and Luther, brow furrowed, moved to clamp a hand on Klaus’s shoulder.

For a moment, Klaus didn’t move, gaze locked on the field littered with bodies from the devastation he had caused, at this indisputable licence of potential.

His head swivelled slowly towards Luther and Allison, both watching him with expressions of worry beneath their astonishment. The hardness in his eyes washed away, the familiar hollowness trickling back as his hands started to shake and he lowered them gently.

“Holy _shit_ , Klaus.”

**Author's Note:**

> [my tua tumblr!](https://wouldyoulikeamargarita.tumblr.com/)


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